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The surprise news that ExxonMobil chief Rex Tillerson is the leading candidate to be secretary of state has led to a slew of stories about how he might transition from the business world to the diplomatic one. The 64-year-old has been at the company 41 years. A sampling:

"He is much more than a business executive. He is a world class player. He is in charge of, I guess, the largest company in the world," Trump himself said on Fox News. "And to me, a great advantage is that he knows many of the players. And he knows them well." Watch the video here.

Tillerson has no public sector experience (which would be a modern first in the post), he's a lifelong Boy Scout, and he received a prestigious Russian honor from Vladimir Putin in 2013. The Washington Post digs into these facts and more here.

He "has spent hours with Putin negotiating billions of dollars in Russian oil projects, and is believed to be on friendlier terms with the Russian autocrat than all but a handful of Americans. He has also been critical of U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014." From Politico.

In fact, he rose through Exxon's ranks largely because of his work with Russia on various deals, observes CNNMoney, which takes a deeper look at them here.

Because of those ties, however, a blogger at Vanity Fair sees a "collision course" ahead in the confirmation process, should Tillerson be named.

Under Tillerson, Exxon "acknowledged, for the first time, the science underlying climate change. It has said it supports the creation of a carbon tax, which most Republicans have opposed, and it also supported the Paris climate agreement," which Trump has vowed to abandon. See the New York Times.

Author Steve Coll wrote a book about Exxon in which Tillerson features prominently, and he finds the pick "astonishing," he writes at the New Yorker. "It is hard to imagine, after four decades at ExxonMobil and a decade leading the corporation, how Tillerson will suddenly develop respect and affection for the American diplomatic service he will now lead, or embrace a vision of America’s place in the world that promotes ideals for their own sake, emphatically privileging national interests over private ones." Read his piece in full here.

The Obama Administration has brought relations with Russia to a sad state. All this talk, in the Liberal press, about Tillerson's "compromised" relations with Putin, are just a cover for how badly Obama and Sec. Clinton botched this important bilateral relationship. Is there a down side to improved relations between the two nuclear heavyweights? I think not. Liberals now predict ruin and disaster for every part of the Trump Presidency, based on nothing more than the resentments of a sore loser. Its all political noise, and no real substance. As with any other Administration, there will be successes and missteps, ups and downs. We have a front row seat on the show, and the freedom to squawk about what we don't like, but for God's sake, let's let it play out. You can't write a review for a book you haven't even read.

SamSungSillySong

Dec 13, 2016 12:33 AM CST

Them all in the cabinet look like clowns. Birds of a feather ...

Finnbar

Dec 12, 2016 2:44 PM CST

Rex Tillerson IS the right choice for US Secretary of State! Don’t any of you want someone who knows everybody else around the world rather than a newbie on the job who has to fly everywhere for new meetings and has no clue about the major industrial sectors? Don’t you know that the World Energy Sector is what runs most of the primary countries in the world for negotiating international treaties and agreements & Mr. Tillerson has been very successful. I think it is more important in our times to have the world’s geographical technical/industrial details rather than to have an experienced government employee! How could a newbie do a country as large as ours justice in this day and age? Why is it a bad thing if Mr. Tillerson has a good working relationship with Pres. Vladimir Putin? Why are the majority of you so much in favor of making Russia our enemy? Russia is our ally, and has been our ally; we have never gone to war with Russia. Actually, Russia is doing our job in the Middle East because President Obama has been managing our country’s military from behind! The NSA report about Russia hacking the US election is not properly stated. Someone has hacked the emails back and forth between the DNC, BUT, the Democrats have run the US Government for almost 10 years (2 years running the Senate & House under Pres. Bush), and there are probably many people overseas who were against the Hillary Clinton Campaign for all of the damage she and her foundation did around the world. The Clintons have a LOT of enemies around the world! Hillary stopped payments on some of her Saudi/Turkish/Iranian people and also had one of her campaign managers murdered right before elections; the campaign manager’s cause of death is the same as the other 24 murders surrounding the Clintons since their beginning in the US, State, & Local Governments! The Hacking can be from ANYWHERE in the world! We already have an NSA American Whistle Blower sitting in Moscow who has continued to be a hacker in addition to an Australian Whistle Blower who blows his whistle for a living so the rest of us can actually know what’s really going on; there are many, many Americans who worked with the Clinton Foundation in Russia, in Iraq & Iran, and in many other countries; why wouldn’t it be from within the DNC or just a group of hackers? We DO NOT have ANY PROOF that any HACKERS, if from Russia, HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT! Just because you get hacked from a specific country does NOT mean that their government did anything. As we know in America, the Ukraine has had its share of global hackers hacking our credit cards, but NEVER, have we blamed the Ukrainian Government. It’s ONLY because of the terrible relationship President Obama has with Russia that so many of you are ready to jump on Russian Government!!!!! None of you would ever be hired by my corporation to represent my company overseas, not even on an unchartered island!!!! Politico, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, & The New Yorker are ONLY reporting this to keep the “Sore Losers” continuing on their sad quest against our President-Elect. One of my cousins retired from Moscow with a large, international oil and gas corporation and he, as well as the other Americans over there on the job, were proud to be Americans in Russia and proud to work with the Russians, as American Energy workers are in ANY COUNTRY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD; that’s who we are, we are Americans and we show compassion and hospitality and good business. We, as Americans, need to be reminded that we need to be hospitable and always put our best steps of hospitality forward in any country and get to an agreement that would work for us as well as the other nations. Mr. Tillerson knows all about Russia and does have a good working relationship with Russia. For some of the Republicans and ALL of the Democrats to be against this man is not only outrageous but a devastating, cowardly move toward international détente. Let me understand this, those of You outraged by the chance of Mr. Tillerson becoming the Secretary of State ARE THE SAME PEOPLE who mourned Fidel Castro’s passing and who stood up and protested what you THOUGHT were the rights of the tens of thousands of unrecorded Middle Eastern immigrants to come across to the US (Rhode Island and other states) as: illegal aliens, ISIS/Taliban, etc.-related sleeper cell draftees who also worship their ISIS/ISIL leaders and try to get established here only to start their own terrorist attacks on Americans and other free people. You sat there and backed President Obama when he went to make a deal with Iran’s Premiere who IS a coordinated murderer, torturer and paid to have people killed from America and all around the world, especially Iran’s own people! Obama opened his arms to Raul Castro and the Castro Regime and all of the Millennials wear Che shirts, another protestor-turned-dictator! Gee, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ran off the job and let people burn and die in Benghazi, and Secretary of State Kerry was against the military and going to war when he was drafted in Vietnam, so he fled to Canada! But, my dad went to Korea and Vietnam and did his job! So, I don’t think a professional government employee merely qualifies anyone to be Secretary of State; I think you actually have to know about the industrial sectors around the world that cause problems between nations and how to fix those issues and enter into treaties and alliances between nations to get along!